Gallery Photos by Ricardo Adame

Izzy Cho
Casually Superstitious

“Casually Superstitious” presents a selection of sculptural installations by Chicago-based, interdisciplinary printmaker, Izzy Cho. Cho’s practice draws inspiration from her Korean American heritage to explore expressions of ritual and superstition in contemporary culture, and its synthesis with transnational consumerism.

Cho described her relationship to superstition as a cultural practice she inherited from her mother, more so than a spiritual one. The artist fondly recalls the small tokens and gestures her mother incorporated into her daily life to encourage good fortune or protection.

Integral to Cho’s recent body of work is an abiding ethos of “DIY Luck", which the artist defined as the “investment in quotidian superstition and ritual as a method of wresting control of your fate.... It’s a sort of defiance to the pressures that would otherwise make you feel helpless to the things going on around you or in your life.”

The artist practices this philosophy in the studio through the intensively laborious process of creating her sculptures; each of which requires countless repeating elements and patterns assembled from templates, interlocking paper lattices, and laser cut ornaments of the artist’s own design. Cho likens her meticulous practice to a devotional act akin to the repetitive nature of ritual. Instead of concealing her labor, Cho elects to preserve the visible seams of her constructions to contradict the racist assumption that mass-produced objects, especially those produced in East Asia, are devoid of value or skill. Cho further obscures the distinction between craftsmanship and consumerism through her use of materials which combine revered Korean hanji papers against glossy acrylic synonymous with inexpensive tchotchkes.

Cho derives the basis of her sculptural forms from a myriad of auspicious objects in Korean culture, which she then abstracts and enlarges to playful proportions. These references encompass items originating in the historical past, such as shrine altars or braided coin charms, side by side with those from the present including Korean snack foods and the hugely popular gambling game, pachinko. In the spirit of DIY Luck, each of these items come together as part of a personal lexicon of “mundane magic” unique to the artist’s lived experience.

The intermingling of these diverse objects within the sphere of auspicious talismans attests to the modernization of culture across time, place, and context; thereby refuting the fallacy that non-white cultures are incapable of innovating beyond homage to an ancestral past. Through her synthesis of sacred and commercial talismans, the artist encourages viewers to reconsider the expression of ritual superstition in contemporary life, and the potential utility of adopting their own practice of DIY Luck. Ultimately, Casually Superstitious presents a vivid, nuanced exploration by an artist seeking to define her own diasporic identity amid shifting cultural vantage points.

Sheridyn Villarreal,
Visual Arts Curator

Izzy Cho is a Chicago-based, interdisciplinary printmaker, sculptor, and installation artist from the Pacific Northwest. She received her BFA in Printmaking from the University of Oregon in 2019 and MFA in Printmedia from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2023. Her next major project is an outdoor sculptural installation at Chicago’s Comfort Station.

izzycho.com // @izmeisters